Famished for leadership

Wednesday

Mar 12, 2014 at 12:01 AM

It would be hard to poll much worse than Rhode Island leaders recently did in a survey of 438 registered voters conducted as part of “Job One: Leadership,” a new initiative of the Hassenfeld Institute...

It would be hard to poll much worse than Rhode Island leaders recently did in a survey of 438 registered voters conducted as part of “Job One: Leadership,” a new initiative of the Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University, The Providence Journal and Rhode Island Public Broadcasting System.

Some 82 percent of those polled gave elected state officials a fair or poor rating for effectiveness. The largest chunk of respondents, 43 percent, rated their performance as poor. Only 2 percent said excellent.

Such a response, while striking, is hardly a mystery. Despite some tender shoots of recovery, Rhode Island remains mired in a relatively poor economy, with one of America’s worst business climates, bad roads and bridges, high taxes and struggling schools.

As WPRI’s Ted Nesi reported last week, the share of Rhode Island residents who were working at the end of 2013 plunged to the lowest level in 30 years. Just 58.8 percent of Rhode Islanders ages 16 and up (the numbers exclude institutionalized people and active-duty military personnel) were employed as of November and December, according to the state Department of Labor and Training.

Some of the state’s policies are clearly not working, and many of its leaders have been either unable to recognize the problem or incapable of finding a way out. “Rhode Island is getting stronger with each day, each week and each year,” Gov. Lincoln Chafee crowed in his State of the State address this year.

In the recent poll, just 12 percent gave state elected leaders a good or excellent rating when it comes to problem solving, while 85 percent said fair or poor.

Some may find something of a disconnect here. After all, it was the voters who put these leaders in office. True enough, though such practices as the long outmoded “master lever” corrupt Rhode Island elections, making it much harder to upset the status quo or pressure incumbents for change.

In the weeks and months ahead, through news, commentary and such efforts as the “Job One: Leadership” initiative, we will strive to help voters better assess candidates and their plans for moving Rhode Island forward.

Every election is important, but this November’s — which will determine the new governor and other key positions, as well as every member of the legislature — looks like a watershed.

Given the costs of its government and the weakness of its economy, Rhode Island is fast losing its opportunities to turn around the failures that threaten to plunge it into a financial abyss.